The Obvious Weaknesses Of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook

The tech world is currently evolving at a rapid pace and those who fail to adjust to this pace are doomed to fail. In this article, we’ll look at the weak spots of four top tech giants.

Of course every company has weak spots and that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is going to fail or go down. But there are such aspects of a company’s growth which are critical to its continued success. That is the kind of stuff we will talk about.

Apple:
Since Apple is the crowned king of the tech world, it is only fair to start with it. The company has rose to rapid success in the last decade or so, thanks to its flagship offerings such as iPhone and iPad. What Apple lacks right now is a solid presence in the cloud. Online services, data storage and many other essential parts of our computing experience are fast moving to the cloud. This explains the cropping up of many cloud services and their success. Apple has tried its hands at iCloud but that initiative doesn’t seem to have really taken off.

Another problem with Apple’s long-term strategy is its rather brief line-up. Given the sheer diversity of the huge market which is using tech products today, Apple needs to have a more elaborate line-up to keep its market share. This is one of the key reasons why Apple is losing to Samsung in terms of numbers, and their profit disparity is also drawing close.

Google:Google is a web-based behemoth which has been able to delve into a number of things, including online search, mobile devices, wearables, self-driving cars and more. But all things considered, Google’s key revenue-generating service is its online search. And if Google loses the race in the world of online search engines, it will fail regardless of how many other services it is offering.

The problem with Google’s online search is that although the company has been improving it rapidly, there is need to do a lot more. For instance, users now increasingly seek a way of ‘social search’, such content related to their queries which their peers or friends also prefer. The company attempted to offer this by integrating online search with Google Plus but since the social network is a failure, that didn’t fly. Perhaps Google can do a better job by integrating Facebook into its online search. That will, however, also mean that Google will be allowing Facebook on its own turf. The good part is that no other online search vendor is offering the feature either, so for now Google is ahead in the race.

Microsoft:Microsoft continues to be one of the leading software giants around the globe. Thanks to the wild success of its Windows operating system, the company has mustered success and smart profits over the last few decades. But that is changing. Desktop computing is dying, Windows OS sales are declining and with that, Microsoft’s profits are wavering.

The key deficiency in Microsoft’s recipe is simply that Microsoft doesn’t have a strong presence in the mobile world. With a meager 3% global share in the mobile market, Microsoft is lagging far behind. And unless the company catches up soon, it may be yet another example of a big failure. The silver lining for the company is its acquisition of Nokia. Now, all Microsoft needs to do is come up with a line-up of stunning, competitive and affordable smartphones and tablets before its too late.

Facebook:
Much has been said about the problems with Facebook such as its often-flagrant disregard of individual privacy. But Facebook can’t help it. It generates its profits by making use of the users’ data, leveraging it to push ads to us. The company once seemed doomed because it wasn’t catching up in the mobile space but in the last year or so, Facebook has mustered an excellent growth in terms of its mobile users.

And for now, Facebook seems to be doing well. But the whole experience of having a virtual world requires a lot more. Facebook is a great way of sharing stuff but that is it, for now. Moreover, users from certain age groups are already quitting the social network in flocks. To survive in the social networking space, Facebook will have to become more of a web-based all-rounder.